When Hurricane Laura bore down on a hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the staff stayed behind to care for 19 babies in need. Some of the babies were on respirators and ventilators, some weighed less than a kilogram, some of them were born at just 23 weeks. A doctor and a team of 19 nurses and therapists hunkered down all night and cared for the little ones without knowing the condition of their own homes and families.
The city got some of the worst of the storm, with winds gusting up to 220km. Water leaked through the windows, the air-conditioning broke, and the water went out. The wind got so bad they had to move their tiny patients to the hallways to keep them out of harm. Despite it all, the staff kept all 19 babies safe through the Category 4 storm.
They'd already had a wild ride before the hurricane hit. Earlier that day, the threat of flooding forced the neonatal intensive care unit with babies to evacuate from Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Women to the main hospital. Doctors, residents and the sheriff's department came together and transported the precious cargo and all of the equipment across the city in record time. People are awesome (and thank you CNN for a story that didn't have the words 'unsurvivable' in it).
